Martha Avery was born around 1846 in Florida to William Avery and Susan Saunders. Her father was a farmer who owned $525 of real estate by 1850. The family lived in Gadsden County, Florida, until the 1850s, when they moved to Jackson County, Florida. She married Ira Pitts there on December 14, 1865, and they had at least six children: Sarah, born around 1866; Frances, born around 1869; John, born around 1873; Susan, born around 1875; David, born around 1877; and William, born around 1879. They moved to Henry County, Alabama, in the mid-1860s, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1870, they owned $75 of personal property. She died in 1889.